Samsungon Tuesday announced the addition of new apps from HBO and MTV to its television-based app store, giving consumers more reason to ditch the cable box for good.

Internet-enabled TVs have been little more than a novelty so far, but like mobile phones, they will grow in popularity as the ecosystem expands with key, quality streaming applications.

This latest deal -- HBO Go offers the brand's signature series, including Sex and the City, The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire and Entourage, while MTV Music Meter is more of a music discovery platform -- demonstrates that quality partnerships will help the TV digital revolution march forward.

Is it so farfetched that the "channel" and video game might be replaced by the in-TV "app"? (And in a lot of ways, it seems more preferable, offering content providers even more control over how their content is experienced and contextualized.)

Samsung's TV app store has been around for about a year. It has more than 200 apps that have been downloaded more than 3 million times, some of which it shares with Samsung's Galaxy mobile devices.

Samsung says consumers will be able to upgrade or make in-app purchases in 2011, effectively the next gear in speeding this transition. It certainly seems like an app-filled future is just around the corner.

Andrew Nusca is a former writer-editor for ZDNet and contributor to CNET. He is also the former editor of SmartPlanet, ZDNet's sister site about innovation. He writes about business, technology and design now but used to cover finance, fashion and culture. He was an intern at Money, Men's Vogue, Popular Mechanics and the New York Daily Ne...
Full Bio